Victories Healing For Krickstein After Rash Of Injuries, Comeback Is Just What Doctor Ordered

April 1, 1990|By Nancy Gay of The Sentinel Staff

When it comes to luck, Aaron Krickstein relates his experiences in terms of polarization: The good, and then the bad. And maybe, some good again.

His meteoric rise through the professional tennis ranks during the early 1980s conjured up glorious images of another Jimmy Connors or John McEnroe in the making. A rash of injuries brought everything crashing down to earth.

Now, as Krickstein continues his slow, methodical climb back into elite consideration again, he savors every precious bit of success, for he knows how fleeting it can be.

''The past couple of years haven't been the greatest for me,'' said Krickstein, 22, who will continue his comeback this week in the Prudential-Bache Classic at Heathrow. The tournament, which runs through Sunday, features a 32-man field. Krickstein, who has yet to win an event this season, is hoping his visit to Orlando will be just the medicine his ailing body and career need.

''I guess a lot of people are wondering what happened to me,'' Krickstein said. ''Things went really well for awhile, then they really fell apart.''

Remember him? Back in 1983, Krickstein was the 16-year-old boy wonder from Grosse Pointe, Mich., who became the youngest player to win a Grand Prix title, at Tel Aviv. He upset Stefan Edberg in the U.S. Open and reached the round of 16 that same year, rousing American hopes that perhaps another tennis wunderkind was about to burst onto the international scene.

As a student of Nick Bollettieri's Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Krickstein blistered opponents with his powerful baseline strokes and charmed audiences with his boyish good looks. The appeal was instantaneous. People magazine featured him in an article, and the teen idol image was off and running. Detroit Monthly magazine dubbed him Grosse Pointe's ''million-dollar teen-ager,'' making him the darling of the suburban Detroit financial planning set.

By mid-May 1985, Krickstein had climbed to No. 7 in the rankings, after having defeated third-ranked Mats Wilander. He was 17.

His father, Dr. Herb Krickstein, was just as caught up as anyone with what was happening in his son's career. ''It looked like his future was pretty assured,'' he said.

But just as suddenly as they arrived, a series of injuries and unfortunate breaks brought them to an alarming halt. The next five years saw Krickstein's once-soaring talent founder, then flop. So stunning was the reversal that the shy teen-ager's unhappy experience became immortalized forever in tennis lingo, as the perfect metaphor for the rise and fall of a phenom.

A burnout - ''Like a Krickstein.''

Certainly, the unflattering reference bothered Krickstein, who by nature is shy and reserved. He now admits he can understand where it came from.

The bad luck started just before his big year in 1985 with one of athletics' most mysterious and frustrating maladies, the stress fracture. It first struck the young and still-growing Krickstein in his right foot and proved to be an ominous preview of what was to come.

Soon, his presence in the podiatrist's office rivaled that of his presence on the court. Krickstein broke two metatarsal bones in his left foot and one in his right. He still has a steel pin in the right.

But his fragile feet weren't singled out. Krickstein then sustained the same stress fracture of the tibia that has stalled New Jersey Nets center Sam Bowie.

How more insult and injury? In 1987, a cab in which Krickstein was a passenger was broadsided in Long Island, New York. The resulting rib injury kept him sidelined another six weeks.

Almost as dramatic as Krickstein's return to tennis was his return to the ranks of the able-bodied.

''It was real tough at first, after the first few tournaments back,'' he said. ''But I figured if I could stay healthy for a period of time, it would turn around.''

That it did. ''During 1988, I was pretty healthy,'' Krickstein said. ''I wasn't hurt for any length of time, and that made a major difference. I was able to improve my game and get my ranking back up to where I thought it could be.''

Last season, Krickstein finished in the Top 10 for the first time in his career. A victory in January over Andrei Cherkasov in Sydney, Australia, provided him with his first title in more than four years. He reached the round of 16 at Wimbledon and the semifinals of the U.S. Open, where he lost to Boris Becker, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4.

''I'm hoping to keep everything going well, by just being patient,'' said Krickstein, who could teach that concept by example. ''Orlando could be the one that does it for me this season. I can only hope that's the case.''